Mortality
by ShawThang
Summary: --COMPLETE-- Angelus understands many things, but death is not one of them.


**Title: **Mortality

**Author: **ShawThang

**Disclaimer: **Angel and co. belongs to Joss Whedon. No disrespect intended.

**Rating: **PG

**Timeline: **Post "Not Fade Away".

**Summary: **Angelus understands many things, but death is not one of them.

**Author's Notes: **Well, I've been watching war movies all day and I'm in a depressed funk. I decided to write it all out of me, and this was the result. Be warned it's fairly dark- no fluffy clouds on the horizon here. It's short- I didn't see any point in burdening this already heavy piece with long winded descriptions. Enjoy, and don't forget to review!

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**Mortality **

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Angelus understands many things. He knows how people act, how they react. He sees how they meander through their lives, wasting precious moments in their hasty desire to find new experiences. He hears about their insatiable quests for greed and power, and listens as they become desperate for more time. He feels their hatred of mortality. He is seared by their inability to cope with the briefness of their existence.

But Angelus does not understand death. He has dealt the black card out for centuries, offering it as an alternative to pain and suffering. It was a form of art to him; he prided himself on the careful torture, on drawing out death as long as possible, on watching the life seep slowly from their eyes. He used to believe he was doing humankind an act of kindness by putting them out of their tangible misery. Their worthless subsistence grated him, rubbing his logic and rationality until he wanted to rip their skin from their bodies in frustration.

Immortal, he wandered the world for years, watching people sink into their own grime until they gave up and took their last breath. They wallowed in their misery, took pride in their destitution, and moaned about their sufferings. Their eyes begged for a way out. Yet they did nothing to end their pain, did nothing to prevent it. Ending their lives gave him a sense of piety. He was doing the world a favour. Sometimes he picked out the weak and destroyed them; other times he oppressed the strong until they became the weak. But mostly he looked on as they did it to themselves. Such immoral, insignificant beings. He felt no pity for them. In his eyes, they were beyond pity.

But every so often he would come across one who accepted their imminent demise. These were the exceptions that intrigued him. That confused him. Why were they unafraid of passing from this world? How did they come to acknowledge it and accept it without fear or regret? What did they see that he could not? For him death was not a cause of unrest. He would never die, would never feel the tightening of the noose around his neck as the years faded into each other. He would never know the wearying of one's bones, the slackening of one's skin, and the dwindling of one's wish to live. He was immortal, cursed and blessed with eternal life.

These few people captured his attention and interest. An old woman used to sit on her veranda every night and knit, smiling up at the moon without a sigh of weariness, or a groan of discomfort, or a grimace or old age. A dying child once rushed to the window every morning just to laugh as the birds perched on the balcony to welcome the rising sun. A father had once taken his three children to his wife's grave, and they had spoken of her with fond memory instead of tears.

Why did they smile and laugh and see death without trembling in terror and worry?

These days, after wasted years repressed because of a soul, Angelus thinks about them again. He thinks about the friends Angel had. He thinks about their deaths. He remembers everything about them; what they meant to Angel, how they hurt him. When Angelus takes life he sees them. He recalls their laughter, their quirks... their pain. It is frustrating.

Killing has become mundane. There is no excitement, no thrill of the hunt, no enjoyment to be had from the slow taking of another's life. He would rather have those friends beside him now, sired by him, transformed into deadly warriors. Like his family back in the good old days, when the four of them slaughtered nations. But they are all dead now, and he wonders why they were taken and why he lingers on.

Angelus does not understand death. Who decides who goes, and who lives? Why is it that he is allowed to choose, and those who fall at his feet in a puddle of blood cannot escape their death? He has asked his victims what they're feeling as life trickles slowly away, but none of them answer. Whether they are too scared or too god damned struck by the thought of dying to answer him, Angelus cannot find out.

God, he doesn't understand. At least Angel didn't understand either. But Angel felt the prick of death, felt the grief and sting of losing others. He could feel what all mortals felt; the inevitability of the end. The end of his friends. Angel, like Angelus, would never discover death, unless it was by his own hand.

Angelus watches mortals carry on their lives, hurrying through the days and forgetting to enjoy the moments they have. There is no appreciation for life, yet they fear to lose it. They search for a way out but when they find a solution they are too terrified to take it. Eternal life is the Holy Grail. To live for eternity is the ultimate dream. They believe death is a curse. That mortality is a curse.

Angelus knows better.

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**The End**

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Yes, I'm angry at the world. So sue (review) me. ;-)

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